Pumpkin Bread with Flaxseed

 
My wonderful neighbors brought us over some sugar pumpkins! 

  
Which means I need to get to roasting & baking! Tonight I actually made pumpkin soup and pumpkin bread to start us into fall! Okay we still have a few more days of summer left and I am holding onto those a days. 

This recipe yields 6 mini loaves of you use 1 cup of batter per loaf vessel. 
Ingredients: 

3 eggs

1/2 cup egg substitute 

1 tsp high quality pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 

3/4 canola oil 

1/2 cup milled flaxseed

1 & 3/4 cup sugar

2 packets of Vanilla Sugar free fat free pudding mix ( I uses one sf ff cheesecake & one vanilla)

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt 

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup ap flour

2 cups of fresh roasted pumpkin purée (or 1 can of puréed pumpkin)

Predirections: preheat oven 350 degrees. Grease up with cooking spray bread vessels. 

Directions:

1. In a large bowl whisk together pumpkin purée, eggs, egg substitute, & oil. Set aside.

2. In a separtate bowl mix together pudding dry mix, flours, sugars, salt, & baking soda. 

3. Mix the wet ingredients in with the dry using a whisk to fully incorporate. Make sure no dry residue remains. 

4. Measure out 1 cup of batter into each mini pan loaf. I use my stonewear pampered chef 4 mini vessels per pan. 

5. Bake for 40 minutes. Or until toothpick comes out clean. 

6. Remove from pan and allow to cool before slicing into. 


Apple Overnight French Toast!

 

One of my favorite dishes to make for breakfast is Overnight French Toast! I think I like it so much because you can put everything together the night before and the next morning you can spend your time enjoying your coffee instead of making a ton of noise in the kitchen and waking up your guests.

Ingredients:

1 can sweetened fat free condensed milk 

1 cup fat Free milk

1/2 cup egg substitute 

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla pure extract

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/8 ground mace, cloves 

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Pinch of salt 

1 whole wheat or french baguette a day old would be good 

Topping ingredients:

3 cups Granny Smith Apples sliced thin (no need to peal the skin)

1 cup toasted pecans, finely chopped

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/8 ground mace, cloves 

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 

6 TB cold unsalted butter cup up

9 by 13″ baking pan

Directions:

1. Cut baguette into 1.5-2 inch pieces and allow to dry out. Place in 9 by 13 pan in three rows. Set aside. 

2. In a medium bowl place milk, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, spices, salt,egg and egg substitute. Whisk ingredients together well, pour evenly over bread. Cover with plastic wrap or foil and let soak in  refrigerator over night.

  
3. Bring baking pan out of refrigerator 30 minutes prior to baking. While waiting for dish to become room tempature prepare the topping. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

4. Mix in a medium bowl flour, brown sugar, spices, and butter. Mix together between your fingers until wet sand like texture. Set aside. 

5. Remove foil from dish. Place sliced apples in layers on top each of the baguette rows. Sprinkle evenly the brown sugar mixture on top the apple slices.  

  
6. Finally add the toasted pecans evenly on the top of the brown sugar mixture. 

7. Bake the dish at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.  Cover with foil and bake for 15 more minute. 

~If necessary lower the tempature to 200 degrees if you are waiting for guests to arrive or family members to wakeup. 

  
 

Spiced “fried” Apple slices

  

My grandpa brought me over some homegrown apples last weekend from his orchard. Now I love me a fresh apple a day! But I’ve been always wanting to try them in the Actifry!?

Tomorrow we are having a brunch for the September birthdays in the Family before we head downtown to the Pirate’s game. I think I am going sprinkle these ontop of some homemade overnight French toast!

Ingredients:

8 cups of apples corded and sliced into wedges

1/2 teaspoon of ground Vietnamese cinnamon

Two 2-3 inch cinnamon sticks

2 tablespoons of honey

2 tablespoons of canola oil

1/8 teaspoon each of mace, cloves, and nutmeg

Directions:

1.  Place all the ingredients in the Actifry and allow to cook for 12-15 minutes! 

Ice Box Key Lime Pie

  

This is a tribute to the 2015 Topsail vacation. We were on vacation last week and everyone wanted Key Lime Pie! We didn’t want to spent $18.00 for a pie so we made key lime martinis instead. 

This weekend was Labor Day weekend and we decided to make the pie from scratch. The bonus is everyone that wanted the pie on vacation was at the party (well almost everyone but my sister)! Sorry Jen we didn’t even save you a slice. 

This recipe is a spin off of Ina Garten’s recipe. I changed a few things around including the crust and I tried the milk with fat free since that was the only kind I had at home. 
When we were on vacation we couldn’t find key limes anywhere! The bottled juice you can find in the stores is subpar. When I planned the menu I was nervous we wouldn’t be able to find key limes but low and behold the strip district had them! Yazzie!

Predirections:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use a food processor to pulse waffers into crumbs. 

Ingredients for the Crust:

1 2/3 cup of crushed reduced fat vanilla wafers

1/4 cup granulated sugar

6 TB unsalted butter melted 

Filling ingredients:

7 large egg yolks (room temperature) look for pasteurized eggs

1/4 cup sugar

1 can (14 oz) fat free sweetened condensed milk

2 TB key lime zest

3/4 cup freshly squeezed key lime juice

Crust Directions: 

1. Place in a bowl wafers crumbs, butter, and sugar combine until butter is incorporated throughout. Press mixture into a 9 inch pie dish. Make sure that the crust is an even consistency throughout the entire dish.

2. Bake for 10 minutes and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. 

Directions for the filling:

1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar on high speed in a electric mixer was fitted attachment for five minutes. I use speed eight and it only took about 4 1/2 minutes. The appearance will be thick and creamy. 

2. Juice speed to medium and Inc. add to the sweetened condensed milk, lime zest, & lime juice.

3. Pour into the cooled prepared pie crust. 

4. Freeze overnight. 

5. Remove from freezer right before slicing into. 

6. Enjoy with a dollop of homemade whipped cream. My go to is on TOH website. The only change I make is I use a whole tsp of pure vanilla extract. 

Whole Grain Raisin Oat Bars

 
 I love baking… I know no surprise!  Today I was reviewing my food network magazine September 2015 edition and came across the 50 bars insert. I must say I adore the inserts of 50 recipes of a specific item!! I couldn’t wait to try one …. Okay so I tried two tonight. I did some mods to the oat bars (#15) and this is what I came up with. 

Pre-directions preheat oven to 350 in line a glass 9 by 13 baking dish with foil. Set aside.

This recipe yields 18 bars

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of rolled oats (not instant)

1 1/2 cups of whole wheat pastry flour

1 teaspoon of kosher salt

1 teaspoon of baking powder

2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract

4 tablespoons of unsalted butter softened

1/2 a cup of unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup Canola oil

2 eggs

2 cups of raisins

3/4 cup of brown sugar (not packed)

3/4 cup of granulated sugar

Directions:

1. In a stand mixture cream together, butter, applesauce, vanilla, and canola oil with both sugars. 

2. Decrease mixer to low and add in rolled oats, flour, salt, and baking powder. Also add eggs at this time adding one egg at a time. 

3.  Finally add in raisins and mix one last time until all raisins are well incorporated. 

4. Place batter in prepared pan. Bake for 35 minutes. Remove from oven an allow to cool before cutting into bars.

Classic Basil Pesto

  

Last year I was so jealous my sister had a beautiful bountiful basil plant. I had started it in a basket hanging basket for her for Mother’s Day but she took it out and planted it in her garden.  While mine remained in my basket hanger and barely grew a few inches. Her plant was beautiful! The first thing I taught her to make with her basil was pesto!! 
I learned my lesson this year I planted our basil plant in an herb garden. Wow this  year our basil plant is large and in charge, like my sister’s plant last year. I have made pesto a couple times this season. My husband loves it! So I thought I’d share the recipe this time. It is super simple. I plan on freezing some for the winter as well that is if it lasts.

It’s recipe yields about 1 1/2 cups of fresh pesto

Ingredients:

4 cups of fresh basil

1/2 cup of lightly toasted pinenuts

1/2 cup of extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 cup of freshly grated Romano Locatelli D.O.C. cheese

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp freshly grated Black pepper 

7 small fresh cloves of garlic (ours are small from our garden)

Directions:

1. Place all the ingredients except for the olive oil in a food processor. Pulse until pureed. 

2. Drizzle of olive oil while the food processor is pulsing.

3. Enjoy on some homemade bread or pasta!

  

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Family favorites around here are chocolate chip cookies. Now the debate of what is the best is still up in the air but on vacation the nestle toll houses recipe is a fan favorite for the Lee’s. Every year when we get together for a family vacation we bake these for a sweet treats after dinner.

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cup ap flour (I always like to use 1 cup of whole wheat pastry flour if on hand)

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup white sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 sticks (1 cup) of butter (mom uses 1/2 margarine) make sure it is room temp

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 package of semisweet chocolate chips ( we used mini allergy free chips)

1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Predirections:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Parchment paperline a  cookie sheet. 



Directions:

1. Mix well together with whisk in a medium bowl butter, sugars, and vanilla. Make sure the mixture is good and creamy. Add one egg at a time and incorporate after each addition. Set aside.

2. In a separate bowl mix together flour, soda, & salt. Add the mixed dry ingredients into the mixture with a wooden spoon. Once incorporated add nuts and chocolate chips.

3. Place the dough about 1 TB spoon amount on the baking pan and space about 1.5 inches apart and bake for 9 minutes. Be careful the amount of time & temperature depending on the darkness of the pan and the temp of the dough. We did have to decrease the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 12 minutes. Remove from pan right away.

4. Enjoy quickly! They go fast!

You can tell when we are not in our own Kitchen, we have to resort to creative “mixing bowls”.

Mom Lee’s Peanut Butter Cookies

  

I was going through my grandma’s recipe books a few weeks ago. I stumbled across my Mom’s Famous Peanut Butter Cookies. These are the best peanut butter cookies ever! I maybe bias… Just saying. I love mom! 

Pre directions: 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a half sheet pan with parchment paper. Set aside. 

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter

1 1/4 cups peanut butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp almond extract

1 2/3 cup sifted all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (I made this change)

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 package of Reese’s peanut butter chips

 Vanilla sugar for rolling the cookie balls in the dough (optional)

Directions:

1. Thoroughly cream butter, peanut butter,sugar, and almond extract in stand mixer. Add one egg at a time and incorporate after each addition. 

2. In a separate bowl sift together flour, salt and soda. Blend the flour mixture into the creamed mixure. 

3. Shape the dough into 1/4 cup balls; roll in granulated vanilla sugar

4. Place 2 inches apart on parchment paper on prepared half sheet pan. I only placed 6 to a half sheet pan. Place crisscross pattern with fork or my mother in law found me this adorable “I love cookies” stamp at our favorite kitchen store in the Strip District. 

5.Bake at 375 degrees for 11-13 minutes. The magic number for me was 12. Remove from pan right away and allow to cool on cookie wire rack.

Jalapeno Corn Bread

I have made this recipe about a half of a dozen times and it never lasts more than a day. We are having a cookout today and my mom is making ribs! I thought this would pair good with some BBQ! All I can say is move over jiffy !

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup cornmeal ( we bought ours from a local farm)

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

6 TB unsalted room temp butter, chopped into 6 chunks

1 1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

2 TB chopped pickled jalapeño (we pickled ours last year)

1/4 cup fresh chives, chopped

2 scallions, chopped

1 1/2 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 cup cheddar cheese blend

2 eggs

Predirections: preheat oven to 400 degrees and cooking my spray a 9 by 13 baking dish with cooking spray.

Directions:

1. Place flour, cornmeal, salt, baking soda, & sugar in s medium bowl and mix well to incorporate all ingredients. Set aside

2. In a stand mixer bowl place butter in medium speed with paddle attachment. Whip for 2 minute until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time and start to add in some of the flour about a 3rd of the total amount. Then add in 1/3 of the buttermilk. Make sure to decrease the speed of the mixer to low while adding in the flour. Continue alternating flour and buttermilk minutes until everything is incorporated.

3. Add in chives, jalapeño, green onions, and cheese. Fold additional ingredients to incorporate.

4. Pour batter into the prepared baking dish. Spread the batter evenly and bake 20 to 25 minutes.

5. Remove from oven and allow to cool on wire rack.

Apple Breakfast Oat Bars

  

I was saving these apples from my grandpa’s to make an apple crisp but what the heck this is like an apple crisp for breakfast. I’m going for it! Oh happy Sunday!
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. parchment line an 8 by 8 baking pan. Set aside. 
Ingredients:

Oat Pastry Ingredients:

1 cup Old fashioned Oats

1 cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

1/2 cup raw sugar

5 TB Canola Oil

3 TB unsweetened applesauce

1/2 TB ground Vietnamese cinnamon 

pinch of kosher salt

1 TB Ground Flaxseeed

Apple filling:

4 small transparent (early) apples (cored and sliced thin)

1 tsp ground Vietnamese cinnamon

1 TB unsalted butter

2 TB raw sugar 

Pinch of kosher salt 

This recipe yields 9 bars 
Directions:

1. Place apples, cinnomon, butter, 2 TB raw sugar in small quart pan on low to medium heat. Heat apples for 5-7 minutes until they start to break down almost like chunky applesauce. Stir occasionally. After time has elapsed allow to cool slightly prior to placing on oat batter. 

2. In a medium bowl mix together flaxseed, applesauce, canola oil, oats, cinnamon, sugar, and pastry flour. Mix with hands until mixture is course but well incorporated. 

3. Divide oat mixture in half. Place half the mixture down on the bottom of the 8 by 8. Press into the parchment paper. Place the slightly cooled apple filling on first layer. Spread evenly. Finally top with remains oat mixture. Make sure to spread the topping evenly.

4. Bake for 45 minutes and remove from oven and allow to cool on wire rack before cutting into bars.